Features |
July 17, 2014

Pour Favor

Read this next

Image courtesy Phil Ervin

DraftServ's self-service beer machines revolutionize the ballgame

Buying a beer at a ballgame goes like this: you get in line, stare at someone’s sweaty back for an inning or two, and then finally get an oversized and foamy draft that turns warm long before you can finish it.

At least that’s how it went, before Suwanee, Georgia’s DraftServ hit the market. The startup’s mobile beer walls let thirsty customers pour their own beers, cutting down on lines and allowing customers to buy by the ounce.

The company was thrust into the national spotlight this week after their debut at the MLB All-Star Game in Minneapolis, but the machines are only the latest chapter in the company’s innovative history.

Founder Jose Hevia premiered pour-your-own-beer tables at his line of restaurants in 2007, initially unaware that he was the first in North America to do it. As other restaurants expressed interest in the tech, Hevia launched DraftServ Technologies and set his sights on beer walls, building the world’s first RFID-enabled beer wall in 2009.

Since then, DraftServ’s mobile beer walls – they also build soda and wine systems – have popped up everywhere from restaurants to cruise ships.

“People are leveraging the technology in lots of different ways,” Hevia told us. “We actually have people’s full attention. They’re hanging out and staring at our systems for anywhere from thirty seconds to a few minutes. And that’s a lot of time to be looking at an ad.”